


What I Like About You

by Karasuno Volleygays (ToBeOrNotToBeAGryffindor)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Boys Are Dumb, M/M, Mild Profanity, awkward confessions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-30
Updated: 2015-04-30
Packaged: 2018-03-26 11:11:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3848785
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToBeOrNotToBeAGryffindor/pseuds/Karasuno%20Volleygays
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Mattsun, I need your help.”<br/>“Oh? With what?”<br/>“Well, you’re kind of the smoothest guy I know.”<br/>“Which is relevant because . . .”<br/>“I want to confess to someone, and I need your help.”<br/>“No.”<br/>“Please?”<br/>“Absolutely not.”<br/>“Pretty please with cheese on top?”<br/>“Fine. Make it extra cheese, and we never speak of this again.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	What I Like About You

**Author's Note:**

> This was written for the 30 Day Kagehina Challenge Day 28: confession

It was a typical Wednesday night at Matsukawa Issei’s house. His parents were watching the nightly news, and Hanamaki Takahiro was patiently helping him not fail math. It was one of the perks of being in Class 1 and having a friend in Class 3. No matter how bad said friend was at math, Hanamaki could not be half as bad at it as the average Class 1 student.

Matsukawa wasn’t terrible at math, really. Hanamaki didn’t need to know that, though.

As they sit on their bellies on the floor, feet swinging in the air, Matsukawa regularly offered some of his strawberry Pocky to Hanamaki. He knew very well that Hanamaki didn’t like the strawberry ones, but the look on his face when he laid eyes on the offending treat was too good for Matsukawa to pass up.

Eventually, Matsukawa stopped pretending he didn’t know what he was doing and finished his math homework. Hanamaki had completed his a while before and had instead settled for raiding Matsukawa’s stash of Chocorooms.

It was right after Matsukawa closed his math textbook with a sigh of relief that Hanamaki elbowed him and, while twirling one of his stolen treats, said, “Mattsun, I need your help.”

“Oh? With what?” Matsukawa raised a brow, not sure what he could help Hanamaki with. Schoolwork was unlikely. Volleyball was a possibility. Fashion sense was a dire necessity but unlikely to add itself to Hanamaki’s radar anytime soon. Of course, it could always be —

“Well, you’re kind of the smoothest guy I know.”

Hanamaki was looking at him with such earnestness that Matsukawa wanted to congratulate him for the lengths he was willing to go to make this joke happen. Matsukawa could think of no word he would be less likely to apply to his personality profile than ‘smooth.’

However, for the purpose of curiosity and humoring his best friend, he urged, “This is relevant because . . .”

“I want to confess to someone, and I need your help.”

Matsukawa’s jaw slowly crept downward as he stared at Hanamaki. He wanted advice about _girls?_ The absurdity was almost too much to process, considering Matsukawa had been dropping hints for two years that he swung the other way. He had no idea how to talk to girls. That was more Oikawa’s territory. “No,” was all he was able to manage.

Hanamaki fixed a wide grin on Matsukawa and nuzzled his upper arm like a cat, and Matsukawa felt his throat go dry. “Please,” Hanamaki wheedled.

“Absolutely not,” Matsukawa said, his voice scratchy. Water. He needed water. He nearly shot off the floor to unearth some of the bottled water he had hidden in his room for emergencies. This was definitely an emergency.

After he guzzled the entire bottle, Matsukawa nearly tripped over Hanamaki, who was on his knees with an entirely fake pout glued to his face. “Pretty please with cheese on top?”

This was never going to stop. Some universal hell had decided to descend upon Miyagi and congregate in Matsukawa’s bedroom. Hanamaki seldom begged for anything; the last time in recent memory was to borrow a new video game a year before. The time before had been the second day of school, in which Hanamaki asked Matsukawa what store he bought his school trousers from because his own were too short.

Maybe it would go away if he just fed the bear and tried not to let it eat him. “Fine,” Matsukawa sighed. “Make it extra cheese, and we never speak of this again.”

“Thank you, Issei-sensei!” Hanamaki howled, his arms in the air.

Matsukawa lashed out his foot and landed a solid kick on a kneecap. “Call me that again and next time I’ll break it off.”

“Yes, Love Machine-sensei!”

As he was clenching his elbow around Hanamaki’s throat, Matsukawa chuckled. If his idiot friend thought he was going to learn anything off of Matsukawa about how to pick up girls, then he deserved every slap in the face that he would eventually get.

 

* * *

 

“No, no, no, that’s all wrong.”

Matsukawa rubbed his forehead after half an hour of trying to teach Hanamaki how to lean ‘seductively.’ “You look like you’re having a stroke.” He groaned and pointed at the wall next to the door. “You. There. This is how it goes.”

When Hanamaki complied, Matsukawa donned a crooked smile as he pressed a hand against the wall next to Hanamaki’s head and leaned in. “Hey, Hanamaki-kun.”

Hanamaki’s eyes were the size of dinner plates when Matsukawa pushed back and crossed his arms. “Dude, how can you think you’re not smooth? That made me want to date you, and you weren’t even asking.”

Cheeks burning, Matsukawa bit back a gulp and manufactured a scowl. “Now try again. And don’t embarrass yourself this time.”

Matsukawa braced himself for another barrage of bad flirting with a red face, but he started in surprise when Hanamaki not only did as he was told, but leaned close enough for their breath to mingle. “Hey, Mattsun. You got a minute?”

“Yeah,” Matsukawa said with a gulp. “Of course, Hanamaki-kun.” Hanamaki let out a throaty chuckle, which is a sound Matsukawa would have typically associated with Oikawa and not his nerdy best friend.

Hanamaki took Matsukawa’s hands in his own and placed a kiss to the heel of each palm. “You have amazing hands, Mattsun, you know that? It’s one of the things I like the most about you.”

The blood rushing into Matsukawa’s every extremity made him feel light-headed. He blamed the prolonged exposure to schoolwork. It definitely wasn’t this mess-headed jerk making his pulse race. That would be stupid. Almost as stupid as this whole idea. “Oh, r-really?” he played along. “What else do you like about me, Hanamaki-kun?”

A thoughtful expression (probably a first) on his face, Hanamaki said, “Well, you’re a lot of fun to be around, even when you’re being a grump. You keep the best sweets — even those nasty strawberry Pocky of yours. And _damn_ you have nice legs. I’m pretty sure your thighs are illegal in at least four prefectures, and heavy legislation is in the works for most the rest of them.”

Unable to look at Hanamaki’s face without bursting into laughter, Matsukawa buried his eyes in the crook of his elbow and muttered through his sleeve, “You’re so gross.”

“I know. You like it when I’m gross.” One of Hanamaki’s hands worked Matsukawa’s arm from in front of his face as he edged up on his toes until their noses were less than a centimeter apart. “Kiss me, Mattsun. Taste my desire.”

Matsukawa could no longer keep a straight face. He melted into laughter and slid down the wall to his butt, where he laughed into his knees until his eyes watered. When he caught enough breath to eke out a few words, he wheezed, “Y-you were doing so well. Did you take up watching Korean dramas to get that terrible pick-up line?”

Once he regained his composure, Matsukawa listed upward, only to find Hanamaki frowning heavily. Still not sure what part of the game this was supposed to be, he asked, “Hey, you got it half right.”

Hanamaki averted his gaze, and Matsukawa realized that his feelings might have genuinely been injured. With a sigh, he nudged Hanamaki’s chin forward and said, “For what it’s worth, you’d do a lot better acting like yourself. You’re cool enough to get a girl to like you for you, not for whatever shitty advice you might think you need from me.”

“Forget it,” Hanamaki muttered as he gathered his schoolwork and stuffed it all in his backpack. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

And just like that, Matsukawa was alone, wondering how any of this had even happened.

 

Hours later, it was past midnight, and Matsukawa was restless. He couldn’t get the image of Hanamaki’s dejected expression from his mind, no matter how long he tossed and turned or stared at the ceiling of his room. Something had upset Hanamaki, so Matsukawa tried to think of anything he did that he wouldn’t have done under normal circumstances. He regularly mocked Hanamaki for acting like a dolt, so he didn’t think that was it. No one could mistake the practice flirting for anything but absolutely terrible. Not even Hanamaki was that clueless about women.

With a groan, Matsukawa tossed off his blankets and stumbled to his closet to find a pair of jeans. A few minutes later, he was climbing out his bedroom window and skulking down the street. After a ten minute trek, he was standing outside Hanamaki’s bedroom window.

Feeling only slightly guilty about doing this on a school night, Matsukawa knocked on the window until a puffy-eyed Hanamaki answered, “What’s your damage, Mattsun? It’s ass o’clock in the morning.”

“What did I do?” Matsukawa said without preamble. “You’re mad at me, and I don’t know what I did. Tell me so I can fix it.”

Hanamaki’s head drooped. “I don’t think you can fix this, Issei.”

Matsukawa’s knees nearly gave out and made him fall out of the bonsai tree he was standing in. After two years of being fast friends, he had never heard defeat in Hanamaki’s voice before, and he found that he hated it. A lot. “Well, I want to try,” he said forcefully as he tried to find better footing.

Shaking his head, Hanamaki said, “It’s not that simple. You can change circumstances, but you can’t change feelings.”

This was the moment both Matsukawa’s comprehension of the situation and the tree branch gave out. They landed in the grass with a dull thud. Hanamaki’s eyes widened in concern before he clambered out the window and helped Matsukawa up. “Are you okay?”

“Other than a bruise on my dignity bone, I think I’ll live.” Sighing, Matsukawa held both of Hanamaki’s hands. “Please, I can’t sleep knowing I upset you. Whatever it is, you can tell me. I don’t scare that easily.”

Hanamaki looked away but squeezed Matsukawa’s hands. After a full minute of silence, in which he figured Hanamaki was collecting his thoughts, Hanamaki said, “You know I know you’re not bad at math, right?”

“Huh?” Matsukawa blinked. “Well, I guess it wasn’t that hard to figure out. It was an easy way for my mom to let you hang out all the time.”

Giving him a weak smile, Hanamaki chortled. “I figured it out the first night I came over to study with you. I just let it happen because I like being with you.”

“Same here.” Matsukawa was dying to scratch his head perplexedly, but he was afraid that if he let go of Hanamaki, his friend would scurry away without finishing this strange heart to heart. “So, how did you get from that point to that weirdness from earlier?”

Gaping at him, Hanamaki just shook his head. “Wow, Mattsun. You may be okay at math, but you are a certified idiot. Use your brain, and get back to me when you figure it out.”

Matsukawa frowned as he considered Hanamaki’s statement. Hanamaki liked coming over and hanging out, even if it was under false pretenses. He wanted help confessing and insisted Matsukawa was the right instructor, despite the latter having a long history of completely ignoring females in general. Matsukawa told Hanamaki to be himself if he wanted to get a girl to like him. Then Hanamaki blew up and left. After the mention of girls.

“Oh.”

Hanamaki slapped him on the shoulder a little more briskly than necessary. “Now you’re getting there.”

“Does that mean you —”

“Yep.”

“Does that mean _we —_ ”

“Only if you want to.”

“Does that mean I —”

“Are a really tall idiot with nice legs? That’ll be a yes, Mattsun.”

Matsukawa flushed as he tried to take in all this new information hailing down on his head like brimstone. “Why didn’t you just, you know, _confess to me like a non-moron!_ ”

Hanamaki ducked his shoulders sheepishly. “I wanted to warm you up to the idea first. I was pretty sure I was your, um, _type_ , but I wanted to know what would make you take it seriously, rather than think I was just acting. Then I panicked and it all went to hell.”

When this struck him as a completely-Makki thing to do, Matsukawa couldn’t help but smile. “Then why don’t you try again? Start over and do it like a normal person.”

“What, confess?” Hanamaki side-eyed him. “How do I know you’re not screwing with me?”

Matsukawa quirked a brow. “Because I already did and it made you upset. Why do you think I’m here?”

“Fair enough.” Hanamaki took a deep breath, his feet shuffling as if he were fighting off the urge to run away. But eventually, he met Matsukawa’s gaze and said, “Matsukawa Issei, you’ve been my best friend since our first day at Seijou, and when I think of family, I think of you.

“It wasn’t easy to swallow when I figured out I really wanted to kiss you, but when I thought about it, it made a lot of sense. We get along, we can hang out and do nothing without it being weird or boring. And you really do have the hottest legs of anyone on the team, and we’re not going to talk about the number of times I caught myself staring at you while we were changing.”

“You . . . what?” It was Matsukawa’s turn to shift restlessly. “You’re making that up to flatter me.”

Hanamaki shook his head. “No, I mean it. You’re a really good-looking guy, Mattsun, and I’m not the only one who thinks so. Oikawa caught me checking you out, and he said it wasn’t fair that you have nicer legs than he does.”

“Bullshit,” Matsukawa replied, his cheeks pinkening. “He would never say that.”

With a roll of his eyes, Hanamaki sifted through his pajama pocket and pulled out his phone. He clicked a few buttons and held out his phone for Matsukawa to see.

 

From: Oikawa Tooru  
Message: YOU ARE SO BUSTED! I totally saw you checking out Matsu-chan’s legs.

From: Oikawa Tooru  
Message: Not that I blame you. I hate that his legs are nicer than mine.

From: Hanamaki Takahiro  
Message: Get a life, Oikawa. You’re so gross.

From: Oikawa Tooru  
Message: You know you love me. Almost as much as you love Mattsun’s legs.

From: Hanamaki Takahiro  
Message: I hate you so much right now.

 

The longer Matsukawa read and re-read this text exchange, the lower his jaw dropped. It wasn’t until Hanamaki snatched his phone back that he snapped back to the reality that was his best friend being in the middle of confessing to him. “Dude, that is the gayest thing I have ever read.”

Hanamaki smirked. “Well, we both know Oikawa is just a deviant at heart, so all his poor fangirls still have a shot.”

Matsukawa was about to snap that it wasn’t what he had meant, but Hanamaki was still smiling and he caught the joke. “You’re a troll, Makki. It’s one of the things I love about you.”

“Hey, I’m in the middle of a confession here!” Hanamaki’s grin never left as he continued. “And I love hanging out with you, even when you’re pretending to suck at math to get me to come over. All you ever had to do was ask, and I’d always be there. You’d have to exorcise me to get rid of me, then.”

Matsukawa’s chest heaved as he struggled to breathe. This was happening. It was really happening. Hanamaki was really confessing and he really meant it and every word that threatened to come out of his mouth was gibberish.

“Cat got your tongue, Mattsun?”

An impulse flashed through Matsukawa, and it brooked no argument from its owner. With a thump, he pressed Hanamaki against the side of the house and mimicked the pose he had suggested earlier — hand pressed against the wall next to Hanamaki’s head while he leaned in. “Hey, Hanamaki-kun.”

“Hey, Matsukawa-kun.” Hanamaki gulped. “How’s it going?”

“Better than I thought it would,” Matsukawa answered truthfully. “You know, it's one of those things you don’t really notice until —” He bent down to whisper in Hanamaki’s ear. “— it’s right in front of you.”

Stuck somewhere between curiosity and want, Matsukawa dragged his lips across Hanamaki’s jaw until he settled on a surprisingly full set of lips.

He had never kissed anyone before, but something basic and ingrained took over as his mouth lingered over Hanamaki’s. Some teeth bumped and noses clashed, but it was all part and parcel of the shivers and the thrills that this small, intimate gesture brought to him, to them both.

Finally, Hanamaki pulled away gasping for air, and Matsukawa realized that he, too, was finding it hard to fill his lungs when their chaste little kiss had knocked the air and the disbelief right out of him.

“Dude.”

Matsukawa nodded woodenly. “Yeah.”

Hanamaki shook his head. “No, dude, seriously. The neighbor lady across the street is staring at us.”

Turning to see what Hanamaki was talking about, Matsukawa saw a middle-aged lady with the curtains pulled back as she was gaping at them with a bizarre expression on her face. A laugh rumbled in Matsukawa’s chest as he undid the fly of his jeans and gave her something new to stare at. He saw the curtains snap shut, and he casually redid the button.

Hanamaki was shaking his head. “I can’t believe you just mooned Kobayashi-san!” he wheezed before he broke into peals of laughter.

The sound made Matsukawa’s heart stutter. He had never known that a simple noise could do that, but he learned a lot of things today. Hanamaki Takahiro was: 1) terrible at flirting, 2) about as smooth broken glass, and 3) kind of cute.

With one last peck on the lips, Matsukawa gave Hanamaki a boost back into the window and walked backwards as Hanamaki waved to him, until well after the house was out of sight.

When he finally got back to what he had trying to do in the first place — sleep — Matsukawa found that he was no closer to that goal than when he’d left the warmth of his bed.

He was going to spend all night thinking about kissing, and it was all Hanamaki’s fault.

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be short and fluffy. I eagerly await the day when my own writing obeys me.


End file.
